Sick

Last December, after our doctor fit all three kids in on Christmas Eve morning for a variety of illnesses, I freaked out about this trip. How -- HOW -- could we go to a foreign country with three little kids who tend to get sick in winter (especially Jack, whose asthma is triggered by cold viruses) and what would happen if they had to go to the doctor in Japan?

I knew the care here would be excellent -- but the language challenges, the bureaucracy, the headache of reimbursement, and more importantly, the lack of personal relationship when dealing with the persons I care about the most, it all worried me.

Well, this clearly didn't stop us from coming on the trip, although the worry of sick kids has been lingering in my mind since we arrived. And we weathered the stitches incident well enough (and we keep remembering to put the anti-scarring tape on Katie most days)... but last night, I thought we had hit the moment that I had worried about a year ago.

All of us have been passing a cold back and forth, and the girls were mostly on the mend. John and I were showing early signs of the cold (which is not shocking as various kids had been coughing in our faces all night for several nights) and so, in a proactive but smelly move, we had been eating raw garlic on buttered toast to try to stave anything serious off. (It's the kind of thing you have to do together, or the one who doesn't wouldn't be able to stay with the one who does.)

And Jack had been fighting it off, which was good... but then had such a hard day yesterday. For those who don't know about his asthma -- it's not the kind that is triggered by cats or exercise or the usual things. Instead, whenever he gets a virus (especially a cold virus), it seems to settle in his lungs and cause days of coughing, coughing, coughing. So he is very healthy about 65 percent of the year -- and seems to get very sick in the winter. Two years ago, we ended up at emerg five times one winter because of his asthma (I thought that should merit a named chair in the waiting room). Last winter was better -- he had two bad flareups, but didn't need the middle of the night run to the hospital for extra medicine. We have been boosting his immune system in various ways (cod liver oil, vitamins, probiotics and lots and lots of fresh fruits and veggies -- although he won't try the garlic sandwiches) and it has seemed to get better as he has gotten older.

But last night he could not stop coughing. I had emailed Tomoko, whose son Taiki has asthma, to ask what hospital one would go to in the middle of the night if one needed to (apparently, only one of the hospitals is open at night). And I worried. I wanted to take Jack to see Dr. Steeves or the Lethbridge emergency room or somewhere familiar... His inhalers didn't seem to be doing much. He looked pathetic. He was getting near the "red" zone on his peak-flow meter, which measures air flow. He did better in a hot, steamy shower, but would start coughing whenever he got out.

I mentioned to John that we might need to take him in. Then John thought of the one thing we hadn't tried that we used to do when he had croup as a baby. He bundled him up, and took him outside (luckily, the snow hasn't melted so it was nice and cold). And the coughing stopped. It started up again when they came in, but it wasn't as bad. I took him into the bedroom and opened the window, and was able to get him to breathe through his nose (kind of a yoga breathing), that seemed to help, too. Anytime he started to cough, I would remind him to breathe through his nose and it would stop. We snuggled for a while, with Jack breathing in the cold winter air through his nose, and he was able to fall asleep. At last.

And he woke up this morning with just a handful of coughs and a TON of energy. I think we made it through the worst (at least I hope so!).

I still worry that it will slide back down into the dangerous territory, and I hope we can make it home without needing to figure out the weird workings of nighttime hospitals in Sapporo, but we made it through what was one of my few real fears about coming here -- getting through a bad night of asthma without our familiar comforts and treatments at hand.

And as for John and me -- we are holding the cold at bay -- so maybe those garlic sandwiches are working.